Blue Moon Rising (The Patroness) (3 page)

I was wal
king through the Quartier Latin
enjoying how the last rays of the evening sun envelopped the typical limestone buildings in a warm glow when I saw what seemed to be a couple leaning against a wall, making out in the shadows of a gap between houses. The man had his hands on each side of the woman, trapping her. He bent down, apparently kissing her throat. Every other pa
sserby would probably turn away
believing to interrupt some lovebirds. But not me. Goosebumps covered my skin and warned me. I saw behind this facade. It was all in the woman’s eyes. She was terrified. Vampires could put their victims in a sort of trance, with just one glance, and then they would pull them somewhere private and feed upon them. That’s what was going on here.

I unsheathed Cutter, being alert. “I’m the Patroness of Paris. May I see your license please?”

The vampire’s head whipped around, his face distorted in a hiss and blood red eyes glowing in the night. Nope, I wouldn’t find any license here. That I was sure of.

Vampires were bound by the Council’s law to carry a license including a magical sensor that would tell how many humans they were allowed to drink from and had actually tapped. Still, feeding o
f
f humans was rarely possible. They mostly had to be satisfied with canned blood.

His red eyes had the same effect as a bright neon sign flashing “Bloodlust”. And for me it ranked right up there with “Jackpot”. Exactly what I needed as a warm-up.

I rotated my wrists
swinging Cutter around, stretching my muscles, and smiled at the vamp. He growled back. And his g
aze locked on my neck. I smiled,
feeling the familiar weight of the silver locket engraved with a Celtic knot under my shirt. It would protect me as good as a cross would a Christian – the power depending only on true faith and not the deity.

“Looks like you should work on your seduction skills. Apparently she doesn’t want you.” I slowly approached them. “But lucky for you, I do. Come here, I won’t bite!”

The vampire charged me. In the last moment I sid
estepped him so
that
he ran passed me.
Quickly whirling around and
wielding Cutter in a wide circular moti
on
I severed his head and kicked his back from behind. His body fell to the ground, his head toppling down a split second later. Both turned instantly to dust.

I stared at
the swirling ashes in disbelief.
“Oh come on, I really expected better from you!”

Behind me the woman had snapped out of the magical hold and started crying. Not a loud wailing but those silent and heartbreaking tears. She sunk to the ground, her legs giving away.

I sheathed my sword and hu
rried to settle down beside her
and
taking her into my arms I murmu
red into her hair, “Shh, everything’s okay. You’re save now.”

We sat together till there were no more tears left within her.

Then she looked up at me, her eyes swollen from her tears. “Thank you, thank you so much. I don’t understand what just happened, but...thank you. I think you saved my life.”

“It was an honor.”

We got up and I lead her into the lights of a bigger side street. It was time to move on.

“Hey, who are you?” The woman asked, still trying to understand what had happened and working herself through the confusion.

I smiled at her and gave her my card. “If you ever need my help again. Was nice meeting you. I have to go now. Take care.”

I set forth towards the Jardin de Luxembourg without farther troubles – and without any sign of the rogue. Dammit. When I reached the gates of the park I looked around, checking the area. Since n
o one seemed to look or to care
I swiftly climbed the fence and landed quietly on the soft green grass on the other si
de. Standing still for a moment
I listened to the night. The distant hum of cars, a cricket singing in the park; nothing out of the ordinary, and so I continued my way. As usual I was once again baffled how quickly the air had changed – no deafening noise but a reverent calm as if time passed more slowly here, no polluting fumes but the scents of flowers and green leaves instead.

As I drew nearer towards the grand stairways leading to the Senate building I caught a faint sound and took cover behind the trees, moving quickly but silently. Soft moonlight illuminated the great central fountain below – and the woman dancing in its waters. Buck naked. A faery, if the wings were anything to go by. I sighed, stood up and approached the faery. She was about my age, slender and had curls bouncing around an oval face, her pointed ears sticking out.

She caught sight of me and, stretching her arms out, she nearly begged, “Come! Come dance with me.”

The woman was obviously high on faery dust. It happened from time to time. Faeries needed to d
ust flowers and trees and stuff
to make them grow and blossom. But if they didn’t get the golden colored dust out of their system it would accumulate. The result? Well, they might end up dancing naked in a fountain before the senate in the middle of Paris. That’s why most faerie
s preferred life in the country,
by the way.

It would take a while for her to calm down
judging from
the glittery cloud swirling arou
nd her and
making her glow like a firefly. I closed my eyes and drew in the energy of the dust flying around us and hoped I had enough time to take care of the delicate faery situation at hand.

I kicked my shoes off and stepped into the fountain. The water was cool and refreshing after a hot summer day. “What’s your name?”

“Pauline, and yours?”

“Hi Pauline, I’m Maiwenn.”

“Oh
,
that’s a beautiful name and you’re beautiful, too.” She must be delirious. “Like an Amazon...” she bounced around, flashing her breasts at me. “Dance with me, please!”

Yep, delirious.

I approached her to take her hand. “I’m sorry Pauline!” I threw a golden brown powder in front of her face as she breathed in, and caught her as
she fell. It wouldn’t hurt her. T
he sleeping powder was mainly made out of valerian root mixed with a little magic. It just knocked her out long enough for me to bring her to safety.

I wrapped her up in my jacket and carried her as f
ast as possible to my apartment
clouding us in fog so we couldn’t be seen. At home I laid her onto the couch for a while, preparing a bed in one of the other rooms in the mean time. When everything was ready I tucked her in.

I would have liked to crawl into my bed too, but had this feeling that the patrol wasn’t done for tonight so I headed out again.

The streets were rather quiet with only the distant and tidal hum of cars, air conditions and electricity pumping through the city’s veins. The evening was warm, the air stagnant, but there was a hint of refreshing music in it. People, illuminated by streetlights and colorful neon signs, on their search for a next drink, a next dance or a next flirt passed me by, and I kept going, watching for vampires or other shadows of the dark. Then, with a new slowly risi
ng wind came the smell of blood. A
nd death. Not far away.

Five mutilated bodies were lying in an alley not far from my apartment. Surprisingly, they were naked. Shapeshifters, who had changed back to their human form after death?

I was used to seeing this stuff
but I sure as hell would never get used to the feeling of loss and failure.

Pushi
ng away those negative thoughts
since the situation a
t hand needed my full attention
I pulled out my cell, prayed for the lost souls and started taking pictures of the crime scene. After that was done I crouched down and I got out a small plastic bag and carefully filled it with a sample of the bundle of fur that seemed to have been rather deliberately placed between the bodies. Standing up again I sealed it and tucked it into the waist bag I carried around my hips.

Next step was the clean-up. Of
course, I had some acid with me
but it was not nearly enough to make five bodies disappear. Special situations needed special treatment and for this one I needed help. Lucky me, I knew the right guy for this. Well, actually he was the only one I could depend on with such a case so hopefully he would hold his stomach.

I pushed the button for speed-dial
on my phone
. Mathieu Ardent was a human, or almost, and a friend of mine. We had met three years ago while I had been on the pursuit of an exceptionally nasty vampire, who had tried to open his own personal blood bank by stocking anything that walks on two feet in a hidden basement – among them Mathieu. He had been sixteen at that time, and we have been close friends ever since. In such a way that more often than not I feel like the bigger sister running after her baby brother.

Mathieu answered after the second ring, “Allô?”

I was running out of time, so I kept things simple. “Salut, I need your help!”

Understanding, he sighed
.
“How much do you need this time?”

I looked over the bodies.
“Hmm, actually a lot, maybe some liters will do.”

“Wha...What? What did you do?”

“Me? I didn’t do anything. I just stumbled over five dead shapeshifters during my patrol. I need you ASAP. Passage Main d’Or.” I hung up.

Mathieu would only need
a couple of minutes to find me since
he was living nearby. I crouched down again to take a good look at the wounds. Broken limbs. What looked like to be red bruises tinged with gray; silver poisoning. And some deep wounds, probably caused by a very sharp tool; how strange. Their heads were cut off, to ensure they’d really stay dead.

Then, for the first t
ime, after I rolled a body over
I noticed that it had an intriguing symbol burned onto the chest. What the hell? Checking the others I came up with five different symbols showing a wolf, a cross, wings, a cat and a shape looking rather like a Halloween ghost costume. Exa
mining all of them very closely
I knew this one was big trouble.

As I took the la
st pictures
Mathieu came running up the street. He was tall, blond and started to lose his boyish looks. And
he
was
followed by a shadow – a ghost,
who also happened to be his best friend. When Mathieu had moved into his new apartment to be closer to the Uni
versity
he soon found out that he shared it with a ghost, whose body or what was left of it was stuck in our realm and with his mind somewhere in the sixties. The ghost was barefoot, wearing a worn out jeans and a colorfully died shirt emblazoned with a peace symbol across his chest – a life-size
d cliché. His name was Philippe. H
e was eighteen years old and had shoulder-length, brown hair. Right from the start Philippe had de
cided to be Mathieu’s bodyguard,
although how he wanted to do that without a body of his own I didn’t
know. But it still relieved me
given the fact
that if ever something happened,
Philippe was able to come to me in a nanosecond thanks to travelling ghost-style.

Mathieu stopped dead in his tracks, as did Philippe, when they saw the bodies. Getting up I said in a hard voice, “Oh no, you don’t. Take a deep breath Mathieu!”

And with a look at Philippe’s transpar
ent but nevertheless green face
I added, “You, too, Philippe. Although – are ghosts actually able to vomit?”

Mathieu did as I had told him and came towards me holding a big plastic canister filled with acid. Philippe just scowled at me.

I shrugged. “I’m just curious. Are you alright?”

Philippe gave me a thumbs-up, apparently too afraid to open his mouth.

Mathieu looked at me.
“Hi. And yeah, we’re fine.” Then he jerked his thum
b over his shoulder at Philippe.
“Although he has a crush on this new chick. Of cour
se, she doesn’t even notice him
and so
he’s just a big pain in the ass
.”

The ghost in question couldn’t leave it at that. “Well, if I could smoke a little pot I would stop wailin
g. But that’s just not possible
and it is even illegal in this age.
” He threw up his arms in desperation. “God, everything we’
ve once fought for...love, freedom. You all...”

“Oh, not again!” Mathieu groaned.

“I miss the sixties! I’d like to see you running around as a ghost in a time that is so self-centered and superficial like this one.”

Geez, these two acted like an old couple.

It was just a matter of time until the police would notice that t
here was something going on here
so I took the canister out of Mathieu’s still slightly trembling hands and poured the acid over the dead. Mathieu couldn’t hold it and threw up in the shadows of the street.